The Midnight Ranger
by Panzer Of The Lake
Summary: Ship Name: UNSC Midnight Ranger, Class: Rio-De-Janeiro class Heavy Frigate (Fitted with ONI cloaking technology), Designation: RJF-1765, Status: Missing in Action [Takes place some 30 years after human-covenant war]


May 3rd, 2583, 2200 Earth Time

The ONI stealth frigate named ' _Midnight Ranger_ ' sat unmoving against the blackness of space. To anyone's eyes, it was completely invisible with its state-of-the-art cloaking technology. And even to scanners it was undetectable, in fact, even its magnetic signature was masked. Truly, the cloaking tech on this Rio-De-Janeiro class Frigate was something that would be thought impossible some 40 years ago during the human covenant war. And speaking of the Covenant...

Captain Carolina Johansen gave an impressed whistle as she looked out from the frigate's viewport. In the distance stood a rather impressive Covenant Remnant Fleet. 3 CSO Super-carriers, 200 Battlecruisers And 50 Heavy-Cruisers

"Now that's a lotta damage" Carolina joked. She spoke with a southern United States accent. Physically, she looked to be in her mid twenties. She light blonde hair in a short grungy looking haircut, and rather unusual eyes which were an orange-ish amber colour. She looked down to who she had been talking to

A hologram of a being that had a human body, but a canine like head who seemed to be wearing ornate golden jewelry and headwear. His, or maybe It's (Depending how you viewed AI) name was Anubis, and he just happened to be the _Midnight Ranger_ 's resident AI "Quite right" his hologram figure nodded "A fleet like this would be easily handled by Home Fleet, or one of the fleets stationed in the major colonies. But it could potentially wreak havoc to a fleet defending one of the smaller colonies" Anubis nodded again

The young human captain, a native of Earth nodded in agreement to his statement "Send a message to Lord Lasky to alert him of all this. Then get ready for some action" She gave a confident smirk "We're gonna soften them up for whatever fleet they're planning on attacking"

Anubis seemed to do the equivalent of raising an eyebrow "We're in a 625 meter long frigate that's meant for covert operations...and they have 250 capital ships...might I recommend not engaging them?" The AI said with some sarcasm

"Oh, we're not doing anything too big" She waved him off "Just leaving them some mines. Bring the ship to combat alert Beta. Helm, impulse jump behind that asteroid" she pointed to an asteroid that was close to the mass of capital ships"

The Rio-De-Janeiro Heavy Frigate made a short impulse drive jump behind said asteroid in the matter of seconds

"Alrighty, cloak again and begin laying down mines. Make this quick" She shouted out to the bridge crew who promptly began doing their duties. She turned and faced her AI "Have you transmitted the message to Lord Lasky yet?"

The AI responded with a curt nod "Yes I have. He's already sent planetary Defense forces all around into yellow-..." Anubis paused before he finished the sentence, before his avatar's eyes went wide "A Banshee crashed into us! We've been detected now!" He yelled "We must get out of here! I'm bringing us to combat alert alpha!"

Carolina sighed "Of course this couldn't have gone smoothly" she muttered "Alright, what's the status on those mines!?" She yelled out to her crew

"The ones we've laid should be enough to destroy two of the supercarriers and the ships surrounding it sir!" A Kig-Yar ensign squawked out. Ever since the Alliance Of Free Species, a still young and rather fragile Alliance between the Sangheili, Humans, Yanme'e, Huragok, Kig-Yar and Lekgolo had been formed, many peoples from the different species had joined the UNSC for multiple different reasons. The Huragok often joined because they were created by the Forerunner, and Humans were directly related to the Forerunners. Sangheili would often join to try and help the people who they had wronged horribly. And the only other species who often joined the UNSC were the Kig-Yar, who were mostly focused in personal gain and joined because of the good pay.

"Alright. We're gonna take out that last supercarrier first. Anubis, bring our point Defense online and hit the last supercarrier with our MAC" She said to the humanoid AI

Anubis simply nodded and did his duty. He hadn't voiced it, but he hoped that their Super MAC would be enough to punch through the massive 29 kilometre long Supercarrier. It was theoretically very much possible. But being a rather young AI, he hadn't witnessed it with his own 'eyes' before

Immediately the frigate's point defense PDRG-2573 Railguns and PDHLB-2580 Hard Light AA cannons came online and started doing their best at keeping enemy defenses at bay

"MAC is charged up and ready to fire!" Anubis declared

"Line her up and fire!" Captain Johansen yelled out and almost as if on cue, Anubis fired the ship's main weapon at the supercarrier that would not have been affected by their nuclear mines. The dense Tungsten round from the MAC proceeded to tear its way through the CSO. A great outcome, the Midnight Ranger's captain would have thought. If not for what her AI declared a few seconds later

"Their slipspace drive has been hit! It's going to explode!" Anubis yelled out in a slight panic

"Make a jump! Now! Even if it's a shorter impulse one!" Carolina shouted out. Her confidence in her abilities as a captain quickly waning . And to her misfortune, a barrage of plasma bolts began hitting the Midnight Ranger. It's Forerunner based shield generators were more advanced than what the covenant used, but even then. The sustained barrage of bolts were quickly draining the shields

"They've knocked off my nav! I need a minute to reboot it" Anubis said, as he tried to focus on rebooting the ship's nav systems back up as quickly as possible

"Too late!" A human ensign cried out in pure horror as the slipspace drive of the CSO Supercarrier exploded, sending a massive shockwave throughout the space around it.

Carolina faintly acknowledged their nuclear mines going off, meaning the destruction of the other Supercarriers. Very well. At least she'd go out with a massive bang, and possibly save some people from annihilation. She closed her eyes and braced for it as the shockwave from the blown up slipspace drive finally hit the Midnight Ranger. And yet, she never felt anything painful happening. Just...felt...being still alive? She took a deep breath and steeled herself before finally opening her eyes to look around. She blinked a few times to make sure she was seeing right. And to her own shock, she was. They weren't dead. They were just in the slipstream. She noticed similar reactions from Sangheili, Kig-Yar and Human ensigns all around the bridge. As well as noticing Anubis's avatar looking bewildered. Before she could say anything however, the ship exited slipspace. Finally regaining her composure, she stood straight again with a more military vibe taking place around her "Anubis? What's the situation? What happened? Report!" She urged the AI

"It..." Anubis also seemed to regain some composure "I had just finished fixing our nav when that blast hit us. It...It appears that the slipspace blast somehow interacted with our own slipspace drive and sent us on a random trajectory...or perhaps one that had been input into their slipspace drive" Anubis noticed that the entire bridge crew was watching him intensely "Well, anyways. It appears that most of our equipment is intact. With the exception of a few of our point defense guns and our MAC" Anubis reported "And I'm getting our nav online yet again" he said focusing on doing that. He suddenly gasped as he looked at his nav "That...that can't be quite right..." he mumbled

Carolina raised an eyebrow "What?" She asked somewhat dryly

"I-I-It appears that we're...we're currently somewhere in the outer rim of the Andromeda galaxy" Anubis reported and most people gasped

Carolina sighed rubbing a hand through her short haircut "How's that possible? We got through the slipstream in a matter of minutes! The UNSC estimated that travelling between the Milky Way and Andromeda could take from 2 weeks to a month!"

"I...I don't know" Anubis admitted slightly ashamed of himself "But it doesn't seem like my nav is malfunctioning" he mused

"Alright. Run scans around us, and prioritize fixing that MAC gun" Carolina said as the bridge crew quickly went back to their jobs and began running scans

"Captain!" A Sangheili ensign yelled out "We...we've detected a...shipwreck of some sort close by!"

Carolina went wide eyed "Shipwreck...that means there might be life in this galaxy too...spacefaring life..." she whispered to herself. This only got more interesting. She sighed "Alright. Cloak and go in closer to the wreckage. Scan for survivors. Just for precaution, inform the crew that the Cole protocol is in effect. And so is the Hood protocol if any equipment gets stolen" The crew nodded and got back to work

Carolina sighed thinking to herself. This frigate definitely didn't have the resources to jump back to the Milky Way. It could definitely make the jump, but the crew would just starve to death. And since slipspace travel nowadays was so fast, the UNSC didn't implement cryo pods in it's newest vessels. She had a deep hatred for those damn cryo pods. After all, she was one of those allergic to the chemicals in them. But now she definitely wished that the _Midnight Ranger_ was equipped with cryo pods.

From the solemn look on Anubis's avatar, he seemed to think the same

"Captain..." the same Sangheili ensign said "We've detected life forms from the wreckage. As well as a distress beacon..."

Carolina sighed "Send a Pelican to find them. With ODST security. We don't know if they're hostile"

"...Carolina. Are you sure that's a good idea?" Anubis asked. He definitely must've been serious, he only referred to her by her first name when he was being very serious

"It doesn't matter what galaxy we're in Anubis. Common Space Law applies to all vessels" She said resolutely and insistently upholding UNSC law

Anubis nodded in understanding "If this is first contact...well. I hope it doesn't go as badly as our first time in a first contact situation" he sighed

 **If you're reading this, this is where you come in. I have yet to decide in which era of Star Wars this should be set. So it's up to y'all. Republic? Old Republic? Empire? New Republic? Other?**

 **And during which conflict of that era (doesn't necessarily have to be at the time of a conflict. Just around the time frame of each era. Like, Yuuzhan Vong time in the New Republic? Clone Wars in the Republic? Blockade of Naboo? Mandalorian War?) it's up to you**


End file.
